On the dusty Oklahoma frontier, a fierce young girl known as Mattie tries to hold her family together. Her uncle Fayette, a ruthless schemer, aims to profit by her father John's extraordinary gifts as a gunsmith. But John flatly refuses to repeat the crime that drove them from their beloved home in Kentucky. Their struggle plays itself out against a backdrop of mule thieves and traveling preachers, scarlet fever and native Americans spirits, pioneer grit and pioneer greed. Through one extraordinary family, The mercy Seat tells the story of the passionate and ambitious people that settle the West and changed it forever.